does money insulate people against any kind of humane treatment of others

[flordehinojos]

in life?

[Virginia Dare]

1. No, case in point.

Bill Gates. While I'm no big fan of his, I think he still has a conscience, and tries to be a humanitarian.

[flordehinojos]

11. thanks for your example. is he an exception to the rule?

:shrug:

[Virginia Dare]

16. Probably, and who really knows what the motivation is..

could be a need for self-martyrdom or the like. I think that is the case with Bono. He does really good things, but I think he adores the adulation deep down. Most rock stars do.

[MissWaverly]

2. No, but insecure people use it as a weapon

the best way to have a stable world is trying to treat the other guy with respect, but
the insecure have something wrong with their brains, they want to trample you in the
dust, to humiliate you to prove that they are better. How this works is a mystery to
me, since the only thing it proves is that they are not better than you but inferior
and a bully.

[flordehinojos]

12. Miss Waverly ... if only we could all see exactly what you are saying.

In this pellet of wisdom that you have just postulated there is something in it akin to how do we deal with the bully in the yard. some of us get caught up in a fight with the bully, others of us know just how to stop the bully. still others of us ... we just sulk.

i guess the big question is, how do we stop the damn bastard bush bullies from bullying the country into a position of submission through fear?

[MissWaverly]

17. There is strength in numbers

We can do this, we can band together as bloggers, as constituents, as voters. I believe
that the reason they are so aggresive that they do not have the consent of the majority of the American people. If you have a candidate running to the US Senate or the House who is having a tough time, post a note on him/her here as a thread. Get people involved. Look at the flowers for Helen Thomas, do you think that Congress is not shaking in its shoes, they see that Jimmy Carter is making 2.5 million dollars on his books. Someone could ask them why have you been a doormat for this president who is using his power to torture people.

[mondo joe]

3. What percentage of freepers do you think are wealthy?

Which states do you think vote blue, the poorer or richer ones?

[oscar111]

6. Venn Diagrams dispute this error

the title "what . .. of freepers... " is not relevant to the question. Could be most freepers are poor, but most rich are unkind.

same applies to the comment part of that post. Rich states might be dem, yet the superrich who really matter, may be GOP. Only the superrich run the GOP, not the voting base of it.

Venn is used in logic courses.. circles are the tool for diagraming.

[Warpy]

I've met a few of the super rich

and I've found them to be mostly affable and kindly, just utterly clueless and uncurious about the world beyond their own pleasant surroundings.

"Let them eat cake" was a statement that reflected that. She actually thought that when the peasants ran out of bread, they had a CHOICE.

The same goes for the ultra wealthy. They have no idea that once you're born into a certain class, you tend to stay there both through a lack of opportunity and a lack of connections. The fact that this is the case simply doesn't penetrate the fog of their own life experience, which is that they really could be anything they wanted to be, including temporarily poor.

[mondo joe]

10. Why limit the case to the "superrich". They were not referenced by the

OP.

[flordehinojos]

13. i know there are many poor walking right in my own neighborhood who vote

republican, and then they sit around and complain that they don't have insurance, or their insurances don't cover what it used to cover ... they all blame it on the democrats --doesn't matter that all of this has come to pass under the worst republican administration ever and the most brazenly controlled republican congress ever... however, they all think they are richer than hell because they happen to be republicans breathing the free oxygen that bush extends to them:sarcasm:

and as for which states vote blue ... does the question become, "can republican money spread and buy ignorance so as to keep themselves afloat or on top?"

right now they are treating the latinos as hell. and some are interested in having the latinos not treated as hell, not because they believe in any form of decent humane treatment for them, but because, they say that, IF THEY LOSE THE LATINO VOTE THEY LOSE THEIR POWER!!!!!!!!! and ain't that a craven position to take...and darn bastard latinos (of which i am 50% a true blooded one) if they aren't so ignorant that they let themselves be bought by the lying bastard bushes and their ilk.

including those latinos who have reached the AMERICAN DREAM under anyone of a democrat's government, or any number of a democrat's policies.

and i think of maria elena salinas and jorge ramos of UNIVISION...she was the daughter of a washerwoman,who saved her pennies, got an education, and climbed the mountain i think i read somewhere. He just said on television the other day that he'd come to this country to pursue the american dream because his father could never have given him in Mexico what he was able to obtain here in the U.S.A. And darn if those two didn't seem to be supporting the republicans all along. Having now climbed the mountain, i think they thought that they had become one of them (privileged class citizens)... however, now the mountain is giving them a whole big brown mountain slide ... and they are learning that as far as the mountain is concerned they are just simply two brown skinned latinos who lived a dream but are waking up in a nightmare.

[adigal]

15. I doubt many at all are wealthy

They don't have the social skills, for one thing, to either work for someone else or to hold onto customers.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. No

I know of too many people who have a lot of money who give a lot to causes-in fact, I know of a wealthy New York couple who literally gave their lives to help those in need. Please check this webpage to find out more about them:

http://www.geocities.com/ayeshahaqqiqa/heroes.html

[flordehinojos]

18. thank you for this link

and for the stories of David and Penny McCall and Yvette Pierpaoli


O8)

[LSparkle]

5. I don't think so -- case in point, FDR and Eleanor

Maybe it's only the rich Rethuglicans that have no empathy -- I can point to numerous Dems (famous and not) who recognize they are blessed and are moved to give back.

[oscar111]

7. rare exceptions dont erase the overall patttern of selfishness nt

xxx

[flordehinojos]

14. o, God, thank God for FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt

and any other blessed Democrat filled with empathy and willingness to treat any other fellow human being as a human being.

(thank you for your post and for reminding me that there are and there were those human beings with real humane values around).

[Marie26]

8. Anderson Cooper isn't like that

I think, in general, rich people are less able to understand the struggles & problems of others. But it comes down sometimes to a person's own inner morality. There are plenty of kind, humane rich people & plenty of mean poor people. Rich people are in a bubble though, that many never want to break out of.

[Igel]

9. I think I disagree with many.

It's not money; it's human nature. We tend towards arrogance and self-protection; if you have more than you need and you interact personally with those that are truly needy, you feel helpless, grateful for having more than you need, and torn between helping others and keeping what you have. A common consequence is either detachment or arrogance and superiority (so you don't actually bond).

I knew people that could interact with me perfectly well, as long as they could believe I wasn't truly needy; my gross annual income, under $10k/year, was many times less than the annual interest on the amount they were giving to my school. Yet they were ok with drinking pinot gris and playing golf with me. I'd go on retreats with donors where my room rate for each night far exceeded my rent for the month, and where dinner cost more than I would spend on food for the month. If I mentioned that I had the choice of beans (and bike for transportation, and a one-room apt.) and paying student fees, or hamburger (or a car, or a 1-bedroom apt.) and not paying student fees, a joke surely deflected the problem. I was decoration, and needed to act with proper decorum. The result would be money that might help my fellow students; acting badly would help nobody.

A pastor I knew was great with helping people. As long as (a) it was on his terms, (b) he didn't need to be emotionally involved; a sense of "I'm glad I'm not poor like her" would suffice to motivate a feeling of superiority, hence detachment. He prided himself on his love of people. His daughter would volunteer evenings in a NICU, and usually return home late, crying. The pastor loved people, not persons; she loved persons, and therefore people. I've read many stories, at least some true, of great activists for humanity (some politicians, some entertainers) that treated those next to themselves like crap, but pushed for helping the poor, the sick, the needy; they love people, but not persons. Unlike the pastor and the wealthy donors, they frequently don't even help people in order to feel good: they feel better by pressuring and cajoling others into helping people. Persons still don't rate.

Even going to "see the poor" doesn't help: you're a tourist. Been there, done that. The detachment is there; you feel bad, but when you sit in front of your steak that night, the detachment saves you--you're not helping a person, you're saving Humanity. You buy a poor person a cheeseburger and sit there, trying to help him learn to how to read well enough to keep his minimum wage job, and you can't eat the steak.

From personal experience, I'd rather write out a check for $200 than buy a hamburger for a poor person I was helping, even when I wasn't far above the poverty level. No thanks from the people the check helped; the thanks from the person I was sitting across from was painful. You can't claim to help thousands if you can't stand helping one; all you do is rinse your conscience, feel good about yourself, get a tax break, and some favorable PR. And it's not great gobs of money that produces this response.

[BiggJawn]

19. Sure it does.

Ever see how the wealthy SUV-class mistreats waitstaff?

[flordehinojos]

20. i know a guy who was working as a server, had a politician from the u.s.

house of representatives stop by and sit at his table, and since this guy friend is not impressed by politicians and would not kiss the ground or the booth on which the politician sat, he was given very many dirty looks by the politician's aide who was traveling with him, as if demanding some special treatment for his boss that he never got from guy friend.

[Nikia]

21. No, it gives them a choice though

The rich don't have to treat people kindly to get their help and companionship because they can always "buy them". Poor people usually have to be nice to others for others to associate with them and help them in times of need. The rich can choose to treat others well though.

[skygazer]

22. I live in a wealthy town

And I work at a grocery store so I get to see a lot of rich people on a daily basis. A friend of mine works at an upscale restaurant and also sees them regularly. And in our experience, the rich are just like anyone else - some are assholes and some are good people. Some treat those in service industries as non-entities and some of them have become people I enjoy seeing and talking to. Some have become friends.

Generalizing does no one any good.